Quote:
Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan
I suppose you can send a demand letter including whatever bogus demands you want to; but to me it does straddle an ethical line, because their clear intention is that people who don't understand the law will just pay up, and then their only cost is a stamp and a half hour of whatever this guy costs:
http://hydellp.com/
But people take letters from lawyers seriously, and they're at a disadvantage when they see legal language that they can't understand. The court in Arkin didn't exactly say "don't do this," but they did intimate that it skirts the line a little bit.
Let me put it to you this way: I can send a demand letter to the King of Persia demanding 1,000 kittens if I want to; he probably has access to lawyers who will advise him I should get bent. A single mother of a teenage boy may not realize that she should give Zellers the same advice without talking to a lawyer, which she can't afford to do; she might as well just pay up.
Also, to me it's a bit interesting that they're using this Hyde guy instead of whichever megafirm usually represents HBC. |
The point I was responding to was that a demand letter doesn't have to tell the potential defendant that they can simply ignore the demand altogether. In fairness to valo, I don't think that's what he was suggesting.
I hadn't read
Arkin before making the post you quoted. Having now done so and considered the opinion of the court where compensation sought from the parents was a dubious claim, I tend to agree that this practice does walk a fine ethical line. I'm pretty sure I took an oath at some point that I wouldn't promote frivolous suits. Some, including the judge in
Arkin, might think that this fits that description.